With D-shaped ends, in three sections, with a removable leaf in the centre, on two columnar supports each with four out-curving reeded legs on brass castors; there are brass slots under the top (six on one side and five on the other) for the insertion of additional leaves and a metal handle at each end for pulling the table out for the insertion of extra leaves.

This table does not appear on plans of Soane’s first Dining Room at No. 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the 1790s¹ and was probably purchased when he moved into No. 13. On 23 December 1813, John Robins invoiced Soane for £1 8s for an extra section ‘... to join your old Dining Tables’ and for ‘Altering your Dining Table frames’.² This is probably XF73, a hybrid piece, perhaps quickly put together by Robins in time for Christmas. Its existence may be an indication that Soane had not yet bought a new dining table, or it may be that the current table sections are the ‘old’ dining table and that the extra piece was intended to go with them (its dimensions match those of the current table). In the 1830s the table seems to have been covered by a red table cloth. In some views of the Soane period this table may be shown at the south end of the Library.

¹ SM 32/2A/7 and SM 32/2A/12, drawings dating from 1792 show furniture in the Dining Room of No 12 including an oval dining-table in three sections measuring 4’ 1” by 3’ 7”, see XF151.
² SM Archive XVI.A.4.2.